Such a bumper system is known, for example, from DE 10 2004 013 713 A1 and DE 10 2004 056 249 A1. In both publications, a C-shaped bracket welded to the crashbox is arranged on a bumper cross member. The C-shaped bracket profiles of these bumper systems are arranged with an upper bracket plate and a lower bracket plate in the rear region, facing the middle of the vehicle, of an upper and a lower boundary wall of the bumper cross member. The arrangement of the brackets on the bumper cross member is accomplished by means of a detachable screw connection. By means of this screw connection, the bumper cross member can be detached from the brackets, which is especially advantageous when the bumper cross member needs to be replaced as a result of an accident of the motor vehicle.
Such bumper systems for motor vehicles have a defined deformation behavior in event of an accident. Already in the 1980s the Alliance Center for Technology (AZT) had developed a crash repair test with the goal of lessening the damage to a vehicle in event of traffic accidents. To the present day, this test forms the basis for the type classification of insurance companies. Vehicle makers use it when developing new vehicle models, and car owners profit from it through less vehicle damage in event of a traffic accident. With the AZT crash repair test, a foundation has been created for the achievement of a good deformation behavior, which has already been introduced in 1999 in an international association of research institutes and been adopted there as an international standard. It has been further developed under the title of the RCAR (Research Council for Automobile Repairs) test.
In the two aforementioned publications, however, a defined high force level in the AZT loading test with correspondingly defined application of energy to the bumper system cannot be realized with sufficient predictability due to the connection of the brackets to the bumper cross member. In particular, this becomes very difficult when the bumper cross member is an aluminum profile, which is relatively soft and is uncontrollably deformed in the first millimeters of the deformation in the loading test, so that little or no predictable energy application and little intrusion into the bumper system is the result.